‘Your data is being sold’ Apple warns in latest ad campaign

by Jonny Evans · May 18, 2022

Apple’s latest Privacy on iPhone ad campaign sees the company return to its attack on surveillance advertising

Apple’s latest Privacy on iPhone ad campaign sees the company once again attack surveillance advertising and once again shows the company’s commitment to a more private internet.

Privacy with iPhone

The ad (which you can watch below), is a fantasy that features a young woman who stumbles into an auction in which everything she does online – from search to contacts to location data — is for sale. She watches in astonishment as data brokers bid for that information, until, having seen enough, she enables the privacy protection tools on her iPhone and all those spooks disappear in a puff of smoke.

The ad makes the serous point that the company has frequently returned to in its campaigns around privacy.

Just last year in its ‘A Day in the Life of your Data’ report, Apple warned:

“Over the past decade, a large and opaque industry has been amassing increasing amounts of personal data. A complex ecosystem of websites, apps, social media companies, data brokers, and ad tech firms track users online and offline, harvesting their personal data. This data is pieced together, shared, aggregated, and used in real-time auctions, fuelling a $227 billion-a-year industry.”

And in April, Apple CEO Tim Cook warned:

“This is a pivotal moment in the battle for privacy. As we look to the future, it is clear that technology will continue to shape our world. But the impact that technology makes on society is not predetermined.

“The loss of privacy is not inevitable.

“And those of us who create technology and make the rules that govern it have a profound responsibility to the people we serve. Let us embrace that responsibility.”

“Let us protect our data and secure our digital world. And let us be clear that privacy cannot and will not become a relic of the past.”

Apple continues to put protections in place.

How Apple strives to protect us

Its controversial App Tracking Transparency tool demands apps request permission before tracking your activity across other companies’ apps and websites. While this tool may have cost some ugly surveillance capitalists a pot of cash, it makes for a more equal decision on the part of users.

[Also read: How to use App Privacy Report to monitor rogue apps]

For enterprise professionals, tools to put you in control of location services, to prevent tracking in Safari and Mail Privacy Protection may all help protect your business. iPhone and iPad users can use the App Privacy Report tool in Settings to monitor how often apps access data, such as your location, camera, or microphone. The idea is that the privacy reports work with Privacy Nutrition Labels to make what apps do more transparent.

Even when it comes to Apple Pay, Apple doesn’t track what you’re buying. It doesn’t store or have access to the original credit, debit, or prepaid card numbers that you use with Apple Pay and doesn’t retain any transaction information that can be tied back to you.

“Your transactions stay between you, the merchant or developer, and your bank or card issuer,” the company has said.

Now here is the ad: